31DC - Day 5 - Dotting Tools

 Hello again lovelies!  Today we've reached Day 5 of the 31 day challenge, and the prompt is "dotting tools".  For some reason, I remembered this as "dots", rather than specifically using dotting tools, and I was initially planning to post a stamped dots mani I wore at Christmas.  Luckily I realised in time, and managed to put something together that did actually involve dotting tools.

I started out with 2 easy coats of Rimmel Lycra Pro - Bare Necessities, which is a really pretty nude cream.  It looks a little bit washy on the first coat, but evens out nicely on the second coat.  Usually if I wear this alone I do 3 thin coats, but since I was doing nail art over it I left it at 2.  It was really late when I painted this, so I left my base to dry while I slept, and added my art in the morning.

Using 3 sizes of dotting tool, I added a single dot of Dark Metal Lacquer - Sky Is Over, She's Like Heroin, and Dreaming, to the index, pinky, and thumb nails.  Then on the 2 remaining nails, I laid down some skinny striping tape in the shape of a grid, and sponged on a gradient with all 3 DML holo's, and immediately pulled the tape up. Once the gradient was dry I added 2 coats of top coat to smooth out those nails completely.

I really like how this turned out.  I've been looking at these 3 DML's on my shelf thinking that they would look awesome in a gradient together for ages now, so it was good to finally do it.  I also love how the vivid, sparkly colours contrast against the softness of the nude base.  I think it would look really awesome over a black base too though, so I may have to try that at some point soon :)

What do you guys think of this mani?  And how pretty are these Dark Metal Lacquers!? Swoon!

So, that's all from me today, but I'll be back tomorrow with a half and half mani to show you.  Amazingly, I actually really liked tomorrow's mani too, so I'm looking forward to sharing that with you guys :D  In the meantime, please do check out all the other amazingly talented bloggers by visiting the thumbnails below.....

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